Delima Kasih

The Blog(u): A Blogger's Tale

This is the story of how I came to love blogs and eventually start one myself. The events depicted here are true, mostly occurring in the two weeks between when I set up shop here at invenctive.blogspot.com and when I 'officially opened for business.'
The index of chapters follows below, with a timeline at the foot of the page.
Now, the apologies and thanks.
First, to the Elder Bloggers featured here, I apologize unreservedly for any offence given and thank you for your indulgence.
Second, to the Elder Bloggers again, I wish I had portrayed you all in more favourable light, such is my regard for you. It wasn't deliberate, just that I'm a crap writer.
Third and last, to all the readers who so bravely click on Delima Kasih. The posts start long and dark; they don't get any better. Thank you for bearing with me.

OK, that should do.

The Blog(u) 1: The Field of Blogs
The Blog(u) 2: Forest Queens
The Blog(u) 3: Trouble in the Forest
The Blog(u) 4: The House at the Top of The Hill
The Blog(u) 5: Four Letters
The Blog(u) 6: And the Winner Is....
The Blog(u) 7: Doctor, Doctor, give me the news...
The Blog(u) 8: Ghost Hunter
The Blog(u) 9: The Third Gear
The Blog(u)10: Close Encounters
The Blog(u)11: plink in the City
The Blog(u)12: Peranakan Blogsiaper?
The Blog(u)13: No hate, nor anger, nor....
The Blog(u)14: Shooting stars
The Blog(u)15: The King of the Hall
The Blog(u)16: The Hall of the King
The Blog(u)17: The Beach
The Blog(u)18: Love and Hate
The Blog(u)19: One Word
The Blog(u)20: No comment
The Blog(u)21: Starry Starry Night
The Blog(u)22: Incoming
The Blog(u)23: Head-dress

1. The Field of Blogs: Reading everyone else's blog and having a good time. Considered the idea and dropped it.
2. Forest Queens: Inspiration from minishorts.net, suanie.net and fuckstress.blogspot.com. Learned that honesty is the best policy and about the value of occasional emotional catharsis (wah, plink use big words wor...).
3. Trouble in the Forest: Still reluctant to blog, stumbled across Yvy's site. At about this time, I also started to comment. The nature of discussions on Yvy's site helped draw me out, so to speak. :)
4. The House at The Top of The Hill: KucingGatal's blog, where topics of a rather frank nature appear from time to time.
5. Four Letters: KG's Merdeka Haiku Competition, won by Hedonistics Anonymous.
6. And The Winner Is...: After the competition, I got cold feet again. Having visited Yee Wei and Paul Tan before, I learned that sometimes, it is easier to write about things that you know well.
7. Doctor, Doctor, Give Me The News: The same lesson learned here, this time from drliew.net. The extra twist he puts into his entries comes from hyperbole, code-switching and more besides. He triggers off the I-want-to-be-like-that feeling. Not bad eh, doc?
8. Ghost Hunter: Ostensibly Tan Yee Wei, but with contributions from everyone else. Concentration and the willingness to call a spade a spade came to the fore. No soft-pedalling here.
9. The Third Gear: Practice, practice, practice.
10. Close Encounters: Ghoul gets a special mention here. A visitor who didn't leave a blog address, Ghoul appeared out of nowhere in the comments section and offered much-needed support. Wherever you are, thank you very much!
11. plink In The City: This was my journey through the maze of strange and wonderful things that came from the mind of viewtru.blogspot.com.
12. Peranakan Blogsiaper?: The title is a little conceit on my part, but it's really about my own responsibility as a blogger. That and the fact that when I'm angry, I write badly....
13. No hate, nor anger, nor....: ...very badly....
14. Shooting Stars: ...You wouldn't believe how badly.
15. The King of The Hall: Kennysia's sense of humour has made him immensely popular, but I noticed that he was a victim of his own success and near-celebrity. I gather this is a 'good' problem.
16. The Hall of The King: The crowded nature of The King's site made commenting a difficult affair for me. After countless attempts and revisions (it's true!) I gave up in frustration.
17. The Beach: Setting comments and commenting aside for a while, this was a look at writing. The coconut juice was NOT symbolic in any way of Kenny Sia! It's just what I drink when I'm at the beach. And Love is obviously someone important in my life. But I'm not the sort to kiss and tell, so....
18. Love and Hate: The unbridled honesty of both rakshademon.blogspot.com and of su-yin provided relief and inspiration in equal measure. There is that quality about their writing that I can't quite match. plink is emotionally repressed: there's a newsflash for you.
19. One Word: We return again to minishorts.net, this time specifically for her command of the language and my fear of trolls. MS has the uncanny ability to choose the correct word for any occasion. This is all the more remarkable as her blogging is largely unrehearsed and unrevised. When it comes to trolls, she could give up her normal job and go into full-time troll-hunting. We could even make a movie out of it: Troll Raider, starring minishorts.net.
20. No comment: One of my earlier entries was on my difficulties with commenting. Suanie came along and all but told me to get along with it, which I am grateful for. I still think long and hard before commenting, but am a great deal happier about it now than I was before.
21. Not being especially tech-savvy, I happened to put up links without looking too closely at the ability of people to 'feel' these things. I still don't quite know how it's done either. So it became a bit of a race to put good stuff into the blog before people started coming to the blog on 31 August 2005. It was only right to bring the lessons I had learned to the party, so to speak.
22. Dropping by KG's blog gave me confidence, so this is a thank-you post. Thanks Kucing!

posted by plink @ 4:33 pm